Xbox 360 Day 5: Nickles, Dimes and Razors Ohh My!!!

Haven't gotten the package to send the Xbox back yet though I haven't checked the mail yet today...that's next on the list. Did go looking for some "accessories". With how much I play this things I'm going to chewing up double A's in the controller like Pac-Man with power pellets. Hence I find a NiMH battery and charger...sweet, $20, that's not THAT bad. Remote control so it'll run movies easier, trust me on this one, it's something I REQUIRE $30. How about a second controller if somebody comes over? That'll be $50 + $20 for the batteries and charger, $70 for a CONTROLLER, HELL NO!!!! Okay well maybe later...but dang. Sorry guys but there is no way I'm doing four for hockey night. Wireless adapter to connect to my broadband $100, ACK, again maybe later. Xbox live 12 month membership $50...you've got to be kidding me. Okay so I'm at $450 and looking at $670 + tax and haven't even bought a game yet. Yo developers! I hope you realize all these accessories are coming out of your pocket. When I buy a controller for $50 you better believe that's taking the place of a game. If $ony packages EVERYTHING in their bundle which I doubt...it'll be a good deal. Ohh and from here on out it's going to be M$ and $ony, original I know :)

XBox 360 Day 1

Okay so I've finally managed to get a hold of a XBox 360. MS has had some serious supply problems with this thing making it real tough to get one down here. I figured I'd wait until the PS3 came and pick one of those up...until I heard the price quoted at E3 $600?!?!?!? Forget that. So here's the plan I pick up a XBox 360 now at $400 and then buy the PS3 when prices come down...I mean they really have to come down. So I get the thing home haven't even bought a game yet (have to do some research before I buy one). Open it up...



It's not THAT big...I thought it was white...gray is cool. F**K ME (parental edit :) )!!! That's just the power brick.



Sweet so I've got it hooked it's time to turn it on...I imagine there's going to be some kind of configuration for this. Hmmmm no power light...and no video to the TV. Ugggh. Read the manual...I don't like reading manuals...no help, ack. Surf the web...I like surfing the web...no help. Time to call customer support...I HATE calling customer support. So I call, I wait for 5 hours to get a voice, actually I only wait through 5 minutes of XBox Live ads, I can live with that. You know I'd really love to try XBox live if I could power on my XBox, I think that's a fair trade. I get somebody named Vanessa on the line very nice, very quick call, do everything I just did over again. She asks if wall outlet works, I ask if she wants to hear the vaccum to prove it. All in all the call lasted just under 15 minutes. But the machine is still not on and I have box being sent to me to pack the console. I asked if she was sure she didn't want the power supply. That's my guess as to the culprit. Anything that big has to have lots of moving parts (yes I know power supplies aren't gonna have moving parts)...and a small supply of heavy water. So on day one no joy well see how long this takes, her estimate is 10 to 14 days, uggh. Mine then is 20 to 28 because I think I'm going to have to send a power supply after I get a console back saying there wasn't anything wrong. Well I'll keep you all informed. Time for Tylenol.

Dogma

Well apparently Google made the challenge too simplistic. I may have to lay ground rules next time. Google is evil, I just like saying that. The correct answer was of course Dogma. This comedy takes iconclastic images that's made the Da Vinci Code popular as of late and gives them a noogie and a wedgie. Really, tell me which is more sacraligous Jesus has a child by Mary Magdelene perpetuating the holy lineage, oooorrrr, Mary and Joseph get busy after Jesus is born (to save the marriage of course) producing siblings which continue the Christ family lineage. The gene tree eventually branches to a family practice clinic doctor who is tasked by an angel to save existence. Yeah that kind of clinic. Ohh and George Carlin is a cardinal in the Catholic church. God is, well I'm gonna leave this a surprise in case somebody's not seen it, who happens to love skee ball. Chris Rock is an apostle and Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are angels. If this is not revolting to Catholics well then I don't know what is. Now if you can set any religous inclinations aside for 2 hours this movie rocks. On a scale of Forget it, Borrow it, Buy it, definitly buy it. I know it has Ben Affleck and Matt Damon...but it's good I swear on a stack of holy bibles :). You'll need to watch this a few times to catch all the different aspects and angles the movie throws in.

On a serious note, despite the description its not an attack specifically on Catholicism so to speak, more and indictment of absolute and unchanging dogma hence the title. It tries to lay the ground work in the beginning of the movie that the ideas which come after apply to every religion. However the predominant well, only, target is the Catholic church. Why? More than likely it's because more Americans will relate to this one specific religion more than any other. It's older than protestants (gee imagine that) and really hasn't updated it's style in 2000 years...though they did drop Latin. I also think it may be more open to self criticism than some other religions. A movie focusing on Judaism might have drawn the wrong kind of agreement, not an open minded discussion but closed minded hate mongering. Now being a non-practicing Catholic myself of course all of this is pure opinion. What the hell, this a blog, the whole damn thing is an f'ing opinion (you thought I was going to say it didn't you). I've heard mumblings of a sequel being made. If it's to be done, now is the time. Though I might focus on religious intolerance in the new one as opposed to a new religion's belief structure. Ohh and next time include a shot of the noble platypus.

Quick Movie Quote

"I repeat, this is not a drill. This is the apocalypse. Please exit the hospital in an orderly fashion. Thank you."

Any guesses?

Emo

I take a small risk in bringing up this topic. It's a risk because it is a very polarized topic to rock lovers, punk in particular. This is much like various genres in electronic music, with the wrong group it invokes a varying degree of disdain to opposing parties. It's a small risk because I'm pretty sure nobody I deal with daily even really cares or possibly even knows about emo rock. Okay so the questions are who what where when and why. Who exemplifies it? What is it and what are its roots? Where did it come from? Why is this genre required?

Emo is something I've recently (last year or so) become aware of myself. Okay maybe that's sad, apparently it has been around a while...tough. Wikipeida calls it subgenre of hardcore punk out of DC in the late 80's. I'll buy the punk sound very easily but I can see where calling it hardcore punk is going to draw some controversy. Where's the political overtones...the spunky (that word going to draw some ire) rebelling against a system? Isn't that the definition of punk? Granted they weren't exactly working with system (until recently but hey...so's punk) but rebelling against it? In reading for this post I did come across a nice little history of emo page.

Okay so those sites will get you a good history now what's a good cross sampling of music to learn more about it....a la Apple's iTunes and another site with some samples. My guess is the most popular is My Chemical Romance though this may be a little unfair since they don't seem to classify themselves that way. Okay so that answers the who what where when and maybe even why....now do I like it? Don't know yet I'll have to analyze the sites myself and get back to you on that one.

Bye Bye BBQ

They came, they ate, they destroyed my kitchen....


By the way what kind of engineers leave the Doritos untouched?


Also I just noticed I have leftover Margaritas...kick ass.

ITunes

Top 10 songs in the shuffle right now....
1. Burn Burn - Lost Prophets
2. I Like It (Sinewave Surfer's 2AM Mix) - Narcotic Thrust
3. Gasoline - Audioslave
4. Love and Peace or Else - U2
5. 23 - Jimmy Eat World
6. Slinky - Slinky Wizard
7. Releasing the Demons - Godsmack
8. Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
9. We Have the Energy - Evil Nine
10. Complicated Questions - Finger Eleven

Looks like the opera didn't make the list :)

Yummy

My new toy...